As the
2009 Sports Car Club of America road racing season draws to a close,
Granbury road racer Richard Dickey sets his goals on the SCCA Runoffs at
Road America in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. This is a change in venue for
the Runoffs. The prestigious event had been held at Heartland
Motorsports Park in Topeka, Kansas for the past few years but has
yielded little success for the two time SCCA Divisional Champion. “Yep,
we’ve had a couple of marginal finishes in the past two years,” remarked
Dickey. “We chose the wrong tires in the 2007 rain race, and in 2008 we
had electrical problems in qualifying which cost us a good starting
position. Consequently we got tied up in traffic and ended up with some
contact and a broken valve stem.”

The Mazda pilot is looking forward to putting the silver and green Kelly
Racing Enterprises RX-8 through its paces around the beautiful and
heavily wooded 4 mile road course. Dickey feels they have an advantage
on this course. When ask why he replied, “The RX-8 has great top end
speed and with the new spring package, we should give the Hondas a run
for their money. I’ve barely used fifth gear in this car, let alone
sixth. The long straights at Road America will give me a chance to air
this baby out.”
The Runoffs pit the top point leaders from each class of nine geographic
divisions throughout the country. Dickey, an accomplished road racing
specialist, has track records at virtually every road course in the
Southwest Division. We ask him how he can be so confident of his
performance when he may not get to run against some of the other Runoffs
guys during the season at all. “You keep track of the other guys with
the internet and compare their times to times you’ve had at that track
previously. That gives you a good indication. Also, track records are
always a good indicator. If you keep breaking track records, you can’t
be doing too badly.”